"In Their Silence: A Glimpse into the World of Deafblindness"
In 2017, I walked into a conference hall expecting to learn something new. What I didn’t expect was to be shaken, transformed, and left with an experience that would live within me forever. As a part of the session, I volunteered for an activity. They gently blindfolded me, plugged my ears, and even restricted my ability to speak. In a matter of seconds, I lost all connection with the world as I knew it. Darkness. Silence. Voicelessness. I was wrapped in a vacuum. Volunteers held my hand and led me out of the hall. Outside, they left me to explore—with only my sense of touch and smell to guide me. Before the exercise began, they told me something that stayed with me deeply: “Reset your mind like that of a newborn child who is just beginning to explore the world.” Those words echoed in my heart as I stumbled forward, completely unaware of what was coming next. I reached out to feel objects, textures, surfaces—anything to tell me where I was. My mind was racing. How does a child wh...